Bill Barr leaks ridiculous Chris Wray story to distract from Trump-Barr obstruction of justice bombshell
This past week a federal judge confirmed that Bill Barr lied to her about the real reason he blocked the DOJ from criminally indicting Donald Trump for obstruction of justice, and she ordered the immediate release of a memo that proves Barr committed obstruction himself.
Now Bill Barr is doing what he always does when he gets in trouble: he’s feeding nonsense to the media to try to distract from his scandal. And the media is doing what it always does whenever Barr leaks nonsense to them: they’re printing it, as if it were some legitimately sourced story.
Tonight, Business Insider published a story “revealing” that early in 2020, Trump wanted to fire FBI Director Chris Way, but Bill Barr heroically intervened by threatening to quit. Maybe this is true, maybe it isn’t; that’s probably not even important at this late date. What is important is that this story of Barr-as-hero was obviously leaked by Barr, in an attempt at making sure the headlines about him this week are about this, instead of about his obstruction of justice scandal.
While Bill Barr was Attorney General, we lost track how many times we caught major news outlets essentially printing Barr’s claims verbatim, while attributing them to a “source familiar with Barr’s thinking” or something similar. In every one of these stories, Barr is naturally painted as the hero. And every one of these stories is conveniently timed to distract from actual news about Barr.
Bill Barr has long had a perversely close favor-trading relationship with the mainstream media. He gives them inside stories that are good for ratings and page views, and in return they paint him as the hero of the story. This relationship surely played a major role in the media’s collective decision to regurgitate his obvious lies about the Mueller Report instead of challenging them, a move which breathed new life into Trump’s presidency at a time when it was hanging on by a thread.
Now here we are again, with this obstruction of justice bombshell that could ultimately land both Bill Barr and Donald Trump in federal prison. It should be one of this upcoming week’s biggest headlines – particularly once the judge forces the release of the secret memo. Yet the media is pushing this other narrative about Bill Barr that’s neither genuine nor relevant. Barr isn’t even particularly skilled at this kind of subterfuge; the media is just that thirsty to favor-trade with him.
